Blue Jays pounded by Royals

TORONTO — The Blue Jays plodded through Wednesday night’s game against the Kansas City Royals like they were already thinking about what colour shirts to wear at the golf course.

For the most part, the Jays looked lethargic and disinterested as the Royals thumped Toronto starter Brett Anderson — who is auditioning for a starter’s job in the big leagues next season — to the tune of eight runs in 1.1 innings pitched. Later in the dugout, a frustrated Anderson was spotted tearing his cap up.

“I think there’s parts of it left in the dugout if you guys wants some souvenirs,” Anderson said.

“Sure,” added the big lefty, after being told that manager John Gibbons described the outing as a mere blip and said he has been impressed with Anderson since the pitcher joined the Jays. “No, it was terrible. You can spin it whatever way he wants to, but tonight wasn’t good by any stretch. Baseball has a weird way of humbling you. Literally going into the game, it was probably one of the five or 10 best pre-game warmup and bull pens I’ve ever had. And obviously that didn’t translate to any sort of success on the mound.”

It didn’t get much better after Anderson was pulled as the Royals continued to pound Toronto pitching for seven more runs en route to a 15-5 beatdown. Toronto gave up 15-plus runs for the fourth time this year, equaling their total from the previous six seasons combined.

The highlight for Toronto came in the ninth with the game already decided when Raffy Lopez smacked a Kelvin Herrera offering over the centre-field wall.

Anderson was pulled with one out in the second and was replaced by right-hander Luis Santos, who promptly gave up a two-run home run to Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez, giving the Royals a 9-0 lead. The Jays didn’t get a hit off Royals starter Jakob Junis until the fifth when Kevin Pillar hit a soft grounder down the third-base line that Mike Moustakas was unable to throw cleanly to first. Whit Merrifield led off the sixth with the Royals’ second homer of the game — a hit that snapped a 47.2 innings scoreless inning streak by Jays pitcher Carlos Ramirez from AA up to the majors, 10 of them with the Jays. The Royals’ third homer came in the same inning when Moustakas hit a rope over the right-field wall for his 37th of the year — surpassing the Kansas City single-season record set by Steve Balboni in 1985.

The Jays finally got to Junis in the seventh, scoring four runs off the righty.